Month: October 2007

Academic Program Managers (APMs) are the people at Microsoft responsible for implementing the Partners in Learning program I wrote about yesterday. We have about a hundred APMs around the world, working with local schools and education ministries on various types of education projects. APMs are the equivalent of the technical evangelists Microsoft has employed for…

Helsinki, October 29, 2007 I am attending the Worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum, a "Celebration/Competition" that Microsoft is holding in Helsinki as part of our Innovative Teachers Network, a grassroots community around the world that promotes and celebrates cool uses of technology in the classroom. It is a component of Partners in Learning, our core program…

October 19, 2007 I had a scary thought in Budapest today. What if the digital divide widens before it narrows? The thought occurred to me on Day 2 of our launch event here. I was attending a meeting of an informal group working on a program called "EUGA", or "EU Grants Advisor." This is an…

October 18, 2007 We held our big press event in Budapest on Thursday and Friday this week. With most Microsoft events, we try to hold on to some important piece of "news" that we unveil at the show in order to make it easier for journalists to write a story. In this case we did…

October 17, 2007 I began the morning in Bucharest today by going for a run and getting terribly and completely lost. I mean 45 minutes of "Do you speak English — do you know where the Howard Johnson’s Hotel is?" lost. The team ended the day having to cross a highway and walk along the…

A group of us are in Central and Eastern Europe this week, starting with two days in Moscow. It’s snowing. The highlight of our day yesterday was the official opening of an IDEA Center, a community-based computer center targeting unemployed, seniors, and people with disabilities. IDEA stands for "Information Dissemination and Equal Access" and is…

I just had a chance to read "The Bottom Billion", a book by by Oxford University economist Paul Collier. He used to work for the World Bank and for the British Government and has created a model for why poor countries remain poor and then describes steps on what "Top of the Pyramid" countries can…

CNET ran a nice interview with Will Poole today. It was based on a series of meetings we did down in the Bay Area a few weeks ago. Will is one of the VPs who runs the Unlimited Potential Group here at Microsoft. The interview includes a video clip of our MultiPoint technology, which is…

In an earlier post, I talked about a visit I made to the Fundacion Omar Dengo, an NGO in Costa Rica. Eduardo Monge was kind enough to send me some more information. Below is a photo of their new facility in San Jose along with a photo of their resident artist posing next to one…

Friday, October 5th. I went on my first "Unlimited Potential" school visit today. It was a moving experience, but it also gave me a good example of what we mean by "Sustained Social and Economic Opportunity." (Photographs coming). The school is called Escuela Oficial Rural Mixta Jose Ignacio Ortiz Vides and is located on a…